International Women’s Day and Islamic
Misogyny

In 1910, March 8 was celebrated for the first time as the
International Women's Day (IWD) in many industrial nations. As a
proposal of the Socialist International, the day demanded the
rights of women to vote and hold public offices, their right to
work and vocational training and an end to discrimination in
jobs.

Since then, the International Women's Day is commemorated on
March 8 and is a national holiday in several countries around the
world. It symbolizes a long-standing struggle of women of all
continents and ethnic, religious, cultural and social backgrounds,
who have been deprived of equal rights with men.

IWD is a symbol of women as an integral part in the making of
history. It symbolizes a denial of all forms of religion- and
culture-based gender-discriminations, which consider women less
worthy than men, for example in Islam. The day is rooted in the
historical struggle against the Dark Ages of European Church and in
the demand for "liberty, equality, fraternity" during the French
Revolution.

IWD has today assumed a new global dimension for the
establishment of women's rights in developed and developing
countries alike. Nevertheless, the growing international political
Islam, strengthened by countries like the Islamic Republic of Iran,
is a serious barrier in the way of achieving its goal. Despite many
coordinated efforts globally, the international community, including
the United Nations, practically ignore the fate of hundreds of
millions of Muslim women, who are conscious or unconscious victims
of Islamic misogyny. Today, the struggle for equality,
justice, peace, democracy, secularism, and development is not
separated from the struggle against misogyny.

While 8th March was historically a secular symbol against the
dominance of Catholic Church in the West, it should now become a
worldwide struggle against the misogyny of Islamic Mosque. Today,
the horrendous shadow of Islamo-misogyny has spread its wings over a
great sphere of the globe, where hundred of millions of women have
fallen into its clutches.

According to the World Health Organization, 85 to 115 million
girls and women have undergone some form of female genital
mutilation in many Islamic countries, including 28 African nations,
despite the fact that it has been outlawed and condemned by the
international community. More than 90% of women in Egypt are the
victims of this barbaric practice.

In many Islamic countries, women, fallen victim to rapes, are
often killed by their families to preserve family honour.
Honour killings as a legacy of Islamic traditions have been reported
in Jordan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Turkey and other Persian
Gulf countries.

Rape as a means of humiliation, confession, and torture has been
used against women in Iranian political prisons. Rape of girls
before execution is systematically committed, interpreted as an
Islamic principle that “it is a sin to kill a virgin”.

Since the installation of the Islamic regime in Iran (IRI) in
1979, a fast-growing majority of the Iranian women, identified as
"bad-hijab" (mal-veiled), have been suffering from the atrocity of
the IRI fanatics in their day-to-day life, and more recently, from
organized Islamic “Morality Police”.

Since 1979, physical assaults, arbitrary arrests, acid-throwing,
harassment and psychological pressure have become the part and
parcel of women's life in Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran has
clearly specified that, for women, no other sort of dress is
acceptable except the Islamic hijab.

The first public demonstration of Iranian women after the Iranian
revolution was short-lived. On 7 March 1979, on the eve of the IWD,
Khomeini decreed that all women employed by the government must wear
the “chador” (an all-enveloping black veil), an extension of the
four walls of home. Thousands of women filled the streets in
protest. For three days, they marched and rallied; on the third day,
they staged a sit-in protest at the Palace of Justice, demanding a
legal guarantee for their right to choose what to wear and where to
work, at home and in society at large.

Khomeini’s supporters, armed with knives, attacked the women;
they cursed them, yelling “Wear your head or get your head rapped.”
They stood at windows along the parade-route and exposed their
genitals, saying, “This is what you want, you whores!”

When Iranian women, for the last time, gathered to celebrated the
IWD peacefully in front of Iranian parliament on March 8, 2007, the
Morality Police attacked the gathering of some 700 women's rights
activists; they hit them, while the security forces arrested a
number of them.

These examples of women's rights violations in Iran make it clear
that the International Women’s Day is not tolerated by the
misogynistic IRI. Opposed to the claim of some
reformists of the regime that men and women enjoy equal rights,
opportunities and responsibilities in all aspects of life in Iran, a gap
in the women's rights from that of men always remains a reality.

Over the years, conferences, demonstrations and commemorations
have been held globally to reflect on the progress made in women's
right. It is now time to
call for what has not been made. International Women's Day should
now be made a rallying point against Islamo-misogyny, poised to damage the achievements gained in the
history of women's rights.

Although the Charter of the United Nations proposes gender
equality as a fundamental human right, the organisation is reluctant
to create standards, programmes and goals for advancing the status
of women equally worldwide. For example, the UN avoids condemning
the enforcement of hijab on women in Iran.

Of course the UN Charter, signed in 1945, was the first agreement
to affirm the principle of equality between women and men. However,
the Charter was prepared before the advent of the international
political Islam. Today, the global community is affected by
political Islam. Consequently, the UN need to adopt new
resolutions to defend the rights of women in Islamic societies.
Women in Islamic societies need international support. In the light
of many conclusive reports of misogyny in Islamic countries, the UN
must react effectively without delay.

The UN, which condemned the Apartheid regime fairly in the past,
is now expected to condemn the gender apartheid of Islamic regimes
in support of women’s full and equal right. It is time for
internationally community to challenge the misogynistic Islamists
across the globe. Confrontation of the widespread violation of basic
rights of women in the Islamic world has been long overdue but
ignored. Safeguarding the women’s rights is now essential to
regaining the sense of International Women’s Day.

Many daily examples of misogyny in Iran show that the IRI by
imposing different status for men and women has reduced the women’s
role to a means of procreation.

Soon after the revolution, Mr. Abolhassan Banisadr, the first
Iranian President, who had lived in France for 15 years, was asked
by a television interviewer if it was true that women’s hair emits
sexually enticing rays and if this is why Islam requires the veil.
“Yes, it is true” was his reply.

Concerned of backlash from women against ongoing misogyny and
outside scrutiny, the Islamic regime responded by forming its own
women’s group. This group produced a newspaper, “The Moslem Women,”
the main task of which was to inculcate misogynistic norms and
pseudo scientific arguments into mind of women. Through the tortured
sense of women’s freedom and origin of women’s rights, its real role
is to promote the regime's misogynistic policy, especially
imposition of hijab on women.

The international community must reject and denounce these kinds
of state-run women’s organisations in Iran. These “yellow”
organisations are a greater threat than the governing male fanatics
to the liberation of women. The real activists, working to defend
women’s rights and to bring about real change in Iran, risk their
safety: IRI’s authorities have been harassing, detaining and
intimidating them in the last three decades.

In the 21st century, the international community should not
accept that women’s rights be crippled by shari’a, a 14-century-old
legal code. It is time to outlaw shari’a internationally, because it
reduces women to second-class citizens in a male-dominated society.
It is time for the global community to condemn the archaic belief
system that reduces women to a subhuman entity.

Promotion of gender equality is not only a responsibility of
women, but of all humanity. Not only is it an important for their
participation in social and economic development and growth, but
also a necessity for a healthy development of the society as a
whole. Gender discrimination creates frustrations, perversities and
aggressiveness with blind obedience, typical of oppressed societies.

Born in Iran, Jahanshah Rashidian studied
psychology in France and is currently a German national. He is a freelancer and writes on democracy,
secularism, and human rights issues in several languages. He maintains
a blog at
Jahanshah Rashidian.

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Name: Philip SaenzDate: Monday March 09, 2009Time: 09:57:17 -0500

Comment

Mr. Abolhassan Banisadr said that "It's true that women's hair emits sexually enticing rays." I can believe the pervert Muslim Banisadr simply because Muslims are always thinking of sex, and/or killing other human beings. These weird Muslims are not normal human beings. There are very strange stories coming out of Iran that are told by American soldiers. Perverted Muslim males even chase nanny goats for sex. So what else can you say about Muslim male perverts? Many Muslim male perverts go so far as to legally kidnap little girls as young as eight years old, then "marry" them, Muslim male perverts call it "marriage," and then rape them on the "wedding" day. That's how sick and perverted Muslim males are. So, yes, I can believe Banisadr when he says that women's hair entices them. Yes, even a woman's ankle entices a male Muslim pervert. Also, a woman's forarm, a woman's face, entice Muslim perverts. Like I said, Muslim males aren't normal human beings. I wonder if the Muslim male pervert is actually human. The humans that I know, the "infidels," can control themselves.

Name: Philip SaenzDate: Monday March 09, 2009Time: 12:16:45 -0500

Comment

I'm sorry that I made a mistake on my previous letter. I meant to say Iraq instead of Iran when I reported above that Muslims chase nanny goats for sex. Yes, it's Iraq and not Iran. However, in a way it's much worse in Iran, another Muslim country, because in Iran, they hang queers by the neck until dead. I find that ironic because Allah promised queers 28 prepubescent pretty boys with pearly eyes and all that other Muslim pig shit if the queers die for Allah. So on earth the queers are hanged for chasing boys, but in the Muslim paradise the queers are allowed to play with 28 little queers all they want, if they die for Allah by murdering especially infidels. So Islam sure as hell is a very strange religion. Also very deadly.

Comment

Comment

Veil and Hijab in general causes less Vitamin D production which causes the need for drugs and theapies which are affordable only for a very small minority of the wealthy muslims. In poor countries the veil causes additional costs for healthcare systems that are already in a very poor condition.

Name: Walter SierukDate: Monday March 09, 2009Time: 15:19:27 -0500

Comment

First,a female in a Muslim family doesn't have to be quilty of committing an infidelity to be murdered in an "honor killing." Second, even if a female is raped she may be put to death in an "honor killing." This is really the height of evil blaming the victim and not the criminal. This is all because of Islam. Third, the Muslim author Nonie Darwish wrote in her book NOW THEY CALL ME INFIDEL p.72 wrote "The same culture that allows Muslim men many outlets for sex- even forced sex- tacitly permits honer killing of women and in some countries, death by stoning for women who have sex outside marriage."

Name: Walter SierukDate: Monday March 09, 2009Time: 15:37:09 -0500

Comment

On the subect of "honor killing," it's outrageous and absured to put to death the woman that was was raped and not the rapist. For it is written in the Bible "Acquitting the guilty and condemming the innocent-the Lord detest them both." Proverbs 17:15 [NIV]

Comment

The idea of sex in abundance in paradise is wrong thinking because the only biological reason for sex is reproduction. However, there is no reproduction in paradise and sex is only performed for fun while this is strictly forbidden on earth. That makes no sense at all.

Comment

Where do you get “Allah promised queers 28 prepubescent pretty boys with pearly eyes and all that other Muslim pig shit if the queers die for Allah”?
You do not need to look any further than your own back yard to find queers. By the way are you one?

Name: ExcesaycesDate: Monday March 09, 2009Time: 22:13:11 -0500

Comment

Worst possible thing women could get in islam is "female circumscision" and infections. child rape etc.
once a muslim in west bengal raped his own daughter, police arrested him and asked him why?? he told him that he his following his beloved prophet foot steps- peace and love be upon him.
he confessed that his beloved prophet (peace and love be upon him)married his own daughter zainab.